Extract from: Beyond the Stage of Time, Volume I Realised Realms. The Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat

20 21 Th e de fi nitions and distinctions I mentioned earlier start to blur, until, fi nally, all distinction evaporates. Th at’s when art is at its most sublime, at its most e ff ective. We move beyond de fi nition, beyond the fragments of the intellect, to uni fi ed experience. Th is is perhaps best understood with music; of all the arts, the one least inhibited by its medium. All separation vanishes; there is no distinction between musicians and music, self and environment. We get wholly caught up in the music; we become the music for a brief, enlightening moment of union, before the squabbling intellect interrupts again to return to its obsession with de fi nition and categorisation. Th at’s why I consider the process to be an act of exploration for artist and audience alike. Every time I paint, I step into uncharted territory, an in fi nite realm of unexplored po- tential. Every new work is like stepping into the unknown, and I am excited to follow wherever it leads. It’s a unique exercise in discovery, in understanding the self as well as the world. And it beats the hell out of boredom. G A slightly irreverent follow-up question for you, with no o ff ence intended. I, and I think a lot of other people, o ft en fi nd listening to artists talking about their own works rather uncomfortable and in many cases a bit pretentious. Is this a problem that you also perceive, or is this part of the process too? M No o ff ence taken, of course, and I agree with you. Some of the wa ffl e that appears in artists’ catalogues, either from them or more o ft en from their promoters, should undoubtedly be read with a bucket close to hand. But I’m pretty sure that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss art at all. And if we are to discuss art, it certainly makes sense to include the artist in the forum—indeed, it would be ludicrous not to, just as it would be to not include an audience in the overall art process. We must also recognise that artists are of course talking anyway, or at least ex- pressing something, through the medium of their work. And they’re o ft en doing so at multiple levels. Never mind the works themselves—the titles of the works are o ft en a comment in their own right. Magritte was communicating something important with the words ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ in Th e Treachery of Images . And what was Duchamp saying when he wrote ‘R. Mutt’ on Fountain instead of his name? Th is is all part of the dynamic exchange between artist and audience. Art is inherently a communications medium, in addition to its many other functions. So talking about art is inherently part of the process, whether you’re asking me questions or whether I’m prompting them in my work. Th e moment you conceptually separate the art object from the process and decide that the latter governs, then any aspect of that process becomes relevant and pertinent; not just the artist’s views but the critic’s, the philosopher’s, the art historian’s, the academic’s or anyone else within the work’s orbit. But we talk about it mainly because the process of art is exciting both for artist and audience, if sometimes puzzling too, and we all like to discuss the things that excite or puzzle us. I’m aware of the dangers of talking about oneself and one’s art, of course. I was asked by a friend at dinner recently what I thought was the most important work of art in the world. I replied—mischievously, but in fact from a subjective point of view correctly—‘My next one.’ He got very cross, and accused me of being ridiculous and egotistical. I tried to explain that this was because, as an artist, one must have real faith in the importance of what one is doing, real focus and commitment. My point here is that his question was about the object, and my response was about the process. Whatever I am about to embark on is my focus. I am so totally committed to it that it eclipses, for me at that moment, any other work of art. In this case talking about my art ended badly, but it did rather endorse my point about the process versus the product. In general, when discussing art my approach is always to be informative or entertaining—or, ideally, both. G Where exactly do you fi nd that excitement? I can see how it might be ful fi lling to be able to produce a dramatic image of a gorge clouded with the billowing vapours of crashing waterfalls, wind-blasted pines clinging with wooden claws to unlikely crevices—but that’s a very surface-driven view. You seem to be hinting at something deeper. M Well, again, this is not just one or the other. Th e explorer’s urge to see what is around the next bend, what the next vista will reveal, to stumble across some extraor- dinary aspect of nature that has never before been seen or recorded; it’s all there, even if there is deeper meaning too. In my own case, part of the excitement of being able to paint natural scenery convincingly and entirely from the imagination is that one creates something that has never previously existed, with every work. I have some level of control over what to emphasise and what to make dramatic; and what should be subtle, what mysterious, what overwhelming. Th e Swiss artist Felix Vallotton summed it up rather well by saying that his aim was to recreate landscapes only with the help of the emotions they provoke in him. But in fact, I try to put o ff that more detailed decision-making for as long as possible, as part of the quest for less obvi- ous but more intriguing levels of excitement that you rightly assumed underlies the mimetic image. One of the reasons I’m so intrigued by the Chinese tradition of pictorial art is that it brings some very interesting aids to the exploration process, in the form of sophisticated materials and formats. My chosen medium is ink and watercolour; my favourite tools are Chinese brushes, my favourite surfaces Chinese or western papers. For Chinese papers, I use xuan paper, cotton papers such as cloud-dragon paper, and Liu Kuo-sung paper. When I’m using western paper, it’s usually Arches from France or Fabriano Artistico from Italy. G Forgive me for being di ffi cult here, but these just sound like purely preferential choices—the same sorts of choices that all artists have to make, depending on their chosen fi eld and aesthetic. What makes these inherently exciting, rather than just the tools of the job? M Well, this is where it gets a bit tricky. At one very basic level, you could say that any kind of exploration presents the same kind of problems: which tent to take, which compass to use, which torch, what clothing and so on. And it’s true—you take the torch that is going to work best for you on a dark night, and a box of matches that will light a bloody great fi re if there are wolves nearby.